]]>Four years after Verizon launched its first 4G network, the company is starting to cannibalize its existing 3G network to repurpose the spectrum for its third LTE network. According to Mike Haberman, vice president of network operations, Verizon is rolling out LTE on its PCS bands, formerly used for EV-DO, in 10 markets.

“In Manhattan, PCS is up with LTE. It puts us in even a better situation, because you’ve got another 10×10 block out there right now,” Haberman said.

Although Haberman didn’t reveal what other cities will see their PCS bands transition to LTE, the change has already been spotted in Manhattan and Cleveland, Ohio. As usage on Verizon’s EV-DO network decreases because users upgrade to new phones, it’s a foregone conclusion that Verizon will repurpose its spectrum.

“Virtually all our devices now are 4G LTE. We do sell a lot of phones and people tend to upgrade their phones fairly often,”Haberman said. “If you see Apple’s complete lineup, it’s all 4G.”

Of course, Verizon can’t fully shut down its 3G networks yet — not everyone has a new smartphone that supports LTE — but 80 percent of Verizon’s data traffic already runs on LTE. And as Verizon moves its voice and text traffic over to the IP network, it will be able to start shutting down its 2G capacity as well. Haberman pointed out that it only takes 2.5 MHz of spectrum to keep a minimal 2G network online. So there’s plenty of spectrum that can be reclaimed.

Verizon has committed to support EV-DO until at least December 31, 2019, Haberman said.

Verizon is also currently testing carrier aggregation, an LTE Advanced feature that will allow Verizon to combine the transmissions of its LTE networks together, and Haberman expects devices that support it to make their way to the U.S. next year. (This year, Samsung sold a special version of the Galaxy S5 that supports carrier aggregation in Korea.) AT&T turned on carrier aggregation earlier this year.

Carrier aggregation won’t let Verizon combine all three of its 4G networks into one super-network, at least not yet. But it will allow Verizon to bond a lower capacity system — like the emerging LTE network on PCS — with the high-capacity “XLTE” network it launched last year. That will result much faster peak download speeds for its customers.

]]>Verizon has already launched two distinct LTE networks since it first turned on 4G in 2010, but now it’s started paving the way for the third. Unlike the first two, however, this new network won’t tap virgin airwaves. Instead Verizon has started cannibalizing its old CDMA EV-DO systems for PCS spectrum, marking the beginning of what will likely be a very slow death for 3G.

Gigaom’s favorite network spotter Milan Milanovic discovered signs of Verizon’s new LTE network in Manhattan when he connected to it with a Nexus 5 (a device Verizon traditionally hasn’t supported because it doesn’t work over its primary 4G network) and a Galaxy S4. The 1980MHz/1990MHz chunk of frequencies has traditionally been part Verizon’s 3G EV-DO network, or it was until last month when Milanovic noticed it was turned off (Milanovic happens to be kind of guy who totes around an industrial spectrum analyzer.)

A spectrum analyzer shows LTE signals in portion of the 1900 MHz PCS band that formerly contained CDMA EV-DO.

This week, though, Milanovic noticed that those empty airwaves had once again jumped back to life, but with LTE instead of CDMA signals. Milanovic said that he’s found Verizon LTE in the PCS band at cell sites all over Manhattan, but so far nothing in Brooklyn and Queens. The transmit power of the network is still very low and the internet speeds he’s getting are still very slow, he said, indicating that Verizon is still in the early stages of testing. There have also been reports on network-tracking site SG4U of LTE popping up on Verizon’s PCS band in Cleveland.

I pinged Verizon, and spokeswoman Debra Lewis confirmed that Verizon is indeed testing LTE on the PCS band, though she said Verizon wouldn’t go into any specifics on locations or timing for a commercial launch. Lewis also made the point that this should hardly come as surprise since Verizon has said it would begin repurposing a portion of its 3G bandwidth for LTE in 2015. In fact, as early as 2011, Verizon CTO Tony Melone told me Verizon would likely shut down 3G completely as all of Verizon’s data traffic moved over to 4G networks.

That day is still a long time coming, though. About 80 percent of Verizon’s mobile data traffic now rides over LTE, but some 40 million (41 percent) of the total devices on Verizon’s networks only have 2G and 3G radios. That means for the foreseeable future, Verizon will have to keep a modicum of EV-DO capacity online at every cell site to support those devices. That’s what we’re starting to see in NYC at least: Verizon appears to have shut off half of its upper-band 3G capacity across Manhattan.

As for 2G, it will be around even longer than 3G since it’s still Verizon’s primary voice network, but eventually Verizon will begin the bulk of its voice traffic onto its new voice-over-LTE service. What we’re witnessing is the very beginning of a long, slow march toward death for Verizon 3G and the gradual transformation of Verizon into a carrier providing all its voice and data services over a single network technology.

]]>Maybe it’s too early to write off the PC just yet. A year ago, the PC market was a clear horror show, with shipments plummeting as consumers embraced the convenience of tablets. Then tablet sales slowed – they’re still expected to outstrip sales of PCs in 2015, but the latest figures from Gartner suggest that PC shipments are actually doing quite well again, at least in developed markets.

On Thursday, the analyst firm said PC shipments totaled 79.4 million units in the third quarter of this year, 0.5 percent down on the same quarter of 2013. However, that decline was down to the emerging markets — in Western Europe and North America, shipments were up 9 percent and 4.2 percent respectively (that’s the third consecutive quarter of growth in the U.S., by the way).

It’s worth noting that we’re talking about x86-based PCs here, including x86-based tablets running Windows 8, but not including other tablets or Chromebooks. Also, shipments aren’t sales, though they are a good indicator of popularity.

Positive results in Western Europe and North America can be a sign of gradual recovery for the PC industry.

Consumers’ attention is slowly going back to PC purchases as tablet adoption peaked with mainstream consumers. The transition from PCs to tablets has faded as tablet penetration has reached the 40-50 per cent range. In contrast, weakness in the emerging market reflects the saturation in selected consumer segments where they can afford PCs. In the meantime, consumers who don’t have PCs will likely buy low priced tablets. This is a one of the major reasons for the slow growth in PC shipments in emerging markets.

Gartner cited a variety of reasons for the comeback in mature markets, ranging from the introduction of more affordable touch-based laptops to the end of support for Windows XP, and the resulting need for many businesses to buy new PCs. The analysts also reckon that two-in-one hybrid PCs, which can double as tablets, are tempting some consumers away from buying pure tablets.

It’s important to note that this possible recovery is mainly benefiting the top PC vendors, with the relative small fry continuing to suffer.

Lenovo is still number one, with a worldwide PC shipments market share of 19.8 percent. Running down the list from there: HP is close behind with 17.9 percent (and is number one in EMEA and the U.S.), Dell has 12.8 percent, Acer has 8.6 percent and Asus has 7.3 percent. All those firms saw healthy year-to-year growth (Asus more so than the rest, with a 16.9 percent boost), but shipments by vendors in the “others” category dropped 15.5 percent.

]]>Nokia Networks isn’t being left behind as T-Mobile starts the latest phase of its 4G network rollout. The Finnish mobile equipment maker announced today that it has scored the other half of the contract to expand T-Mobile’s LTE systems into the PCS and 700 MHz bands and bring the country’s No. 4 carrier into rural areas it had long neglected.

As T-Mobile revealed last week, Ericssonis T-Mobile’s other vendor. Neither choice should come as a surprise since both built T-Mobile’s original LTE networks as well as its 3G HSPA+ networks. Carriers tend to stick with their suppliers for the long haul unless there’s a drastic change in circumstances, such as one going bankrupt or abandoning a technology line.

Ericsson is building T-Mobile’s network on the coasts while Nokia is handling the rollout in the areas in between. Nokia will handle upgrades in its territories to glue T-Mobile’s three different LTE networks together, using a LTE-Advanced technique called carrier aggregation. It is also supplying the gateways that power T-Mo’s new voice-over-LTE services.

]]>Considering Ericsson built a good deal of T-Mobile’s first LTE network, it should come as no surprise that T-Mobile US has tapped the Swedish network infrastructure giant to complete the next phase of its ongoing 4G rollout. Ericsson announced on Tuesday that is building new LTE systems in the 700 MHz and 1900 MHz PCS bands for T-Mobile as well as providing the baseband processing glue that will meld those different networks together.

Instead of operating all three as different networks, though, Ericsson is laying the groundwork for unifying them into one big ultra-fast system. Using an LTE-Advanced technique called carrier aggregation, Ericsson will be able to bond the downlink transmissions of two or more bands into one big fat data pipe.

T-Mobile hasn’t announced any specific timeline for implementing carrier aggregation, but it’s safe to say it’s on all U.S. carriers’ roadmaps. AT&T has already spliced together networks in Chicago and other cities, while Sprint plans on beefing up its Spark network with more airwaves by the end of the year. In any case, it will probably be a while before we’ll be able to tap into a radio-busting 500 Mbps link on a T-Mobile smartphone or tablet, but at least Ericsson is getting the network prepped.

Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg holds up the vendor’s smallest small cell, the Radio Dot (Photo by Kevin Fitchard)

Ericsson also revealed it’s deploying small cells in T-Mobile’s network. These tiny little base stations pile a lot of capacity into small area, making them ideal for feeding our growing data appetites in dense crowded areas like malls and outdoor plazas. Finally, Ericsson has been helping T-Mobile out with its voice over LTE and voice over Wi-Fi deployments, providing the gateways that turn plain old 2G calls into VoIP calls when we switch between GSM and LTE or Wi-Fi connections.

T-Mobile actually has two primary LTE vendors. The other is Nokia Networks, who is curiously absent from any official contract announcement today, but that doesn’t necessarily means it’s on the outs with its most important U.S. customer. When big carriers – and in the global scheme of things T-Mobile still counts as a big carrier – build things they tend to rely on multiple suppliers, awarding them different geographical areas.

It’s a handy way of playing your suppliers off of one another and gives you a fall back in case something unexpected happens (like a vendor going bankrupt or exiting a key technology market). We’ll probably see a similar announcement from Nokia shortly. If not, well, then Ericsson has scored a major coup.

]]>Sprint has teamed up with the Competitive Carrier Association and the NetAmerica Alliance to form a kind of LTE cabal. Sprint and rural carriers are joining together to build broad coverage networks through roaming agreements, cooperation on devices and even spectrum sharing.

At the CCA’s conference in San Antonio, Sprint announced it is working with the rural carrier association to create low-cost reciprocal roaming agreements with and among its members. The idea is each carrier’s customers will be able to move on and off each other’s LTE networks without racking up big data roaming fees.

Source: Shutterstock / Nneirda

No specific rural operators were announced in the deal, but if they choose to participate they’ll get access to Sprint’s growing LTE network in cities and towns. Meanwhile Sprint will be able to expand its footprint into parts of the country its mobile broadband network doesn’t touch.

Normally this kind of agreement would be meaningless since Sprint and rural operators use completely different frequency bands. You can’t roam if your device can’t connect to the roaming network. But as part of the CCA deal, Sprint has agreed to include support on its devices for the 700 MHz band most carriers use, though it didn’t name any specific modems or handsets. If 700 MHz makes it into Sprint smartphones, it could give rural carriers access to a much bigger portfolio of devices as well as a nationwide network.

Finally, Sprint announced a separate deal with another rural carrier group, the NetAmerica Alliance, that will offer operators access to Sprint’s spectrum in areas where it doesn’t have LTE networks of its own. NetAmerica members that participate would build and run their own networks using Sprint’s 800 MHz and 1900 MHz PCS frequenices. Their customers would then tap into Sprint’s nationwide LTE network, while Sprint’s customers could roam onto their rural towers.

]]>Like an eBay listing for a vintage Def Leppard concert T-Shirt, the Federal Communications Commission’s first spectrum auction in six years reached its reserve price of $1.56 billion and then promptly came to a halt with no further bids. Given the lack of carrier interest in Auction 96 and the 10 MHz of PCS spectrum it offered, the lackluster result is hardly a shock. Nor are we likely going to be surprised by the winners when the FCC announces them next month. Dish Network had promised to bid the reserve price for this spectrum, and barring any surprises, it likely ran away with these airwaves.

]]>Microsoft will continue to allow PC manufacturers to make and sell Windows 7 business machines beyond the original 31 October cut-off date. The change of plan, spotted by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, suggests Microsoft hasn’t seen sufficient enthusiasm from the business sector for its Windows 8 operating system (although a Microsoft exec denied this interpretation, telling Foley the company just wants to continue catering to businesses that are still deploying Windows 7). However, it should still be impossible to find a new Windows 7 consumer PC soon after the end of October.

]]>The Dutch online payments company Adyen has put out some device breakdown data based on its considerable traffic (it handled $14 billion last year), and the results show how high-value purchases are increasingly taking place on tablets.

For the avoidance of doubt, the mobile payments we’re talking about here are payments taking place through mobile browsers or apps, rather than people using their phones to make contactless payments (which is still an uncertain business). So this is really describing the transition from the desktop to the mobile device, rather than new forms of payment.

Adyen looked at the volume and value of payments taking place in 5 key verticals, namely gaming, retail, ticketing, digital goods and travel. Retail aside, smartphones saw a greater volume of transactions than tablets did, but people are shelling out more cash in the average tablet transaction – more even than PC-based transactions, in all verticals save travel.

Here’s a couple of graphs showing Adyen’s findings, covering the last quarter of 2013. Unfortunately there’s no mention of PCs in the top section, which deals with volume (smartphones vs tablets only), but the bottom section gives a clear indication of the average transaction value breakdown between all 3 device types:

Adyen CCO Roelant Prins also gave me another interesting piece of information from the study, saying that merchants who have a proper mobile app or who have at least created a responsive retail site that renders well on mobile, have on average a 10-15 percent higher conversion rate than those who just run a desktop-oriented web store.

The message here is quite obvious, when you combine it with the sales trajectories of the different device types: tablets are taking over from the desktop, certainly as the device of choice for those sitting on the couch and buying high-value goods, and retailers in particular should be optimizing their operations accordingly.